Send "Robert Earl Keen " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Robert Earl Keen is a one of the quintessential voices of central Texas. Not as a singer—though his delivery has some magic to it—but as a songwriter and a storyteller. He’s what a country artist should be and nothing it’s not: clever, but not contrived; wise, but not intellectual; tough, but not macho; and, above all, honest. His lyrics are cerebral—that will never change, but his tone will. On Ready for Confetti, Keen’s 16th release, he opts for a happy-go-lucky mood on most songs. It’s a smokescreen, though. Once the lyrics sink in, we realize he’s setting the same scenes he always has: southwestern stories that act out the indefinable humors, tragedies and ironies of life. Take the title track as an example. It’s not the cheery birthday party anthem it sounds like on first listen, nor is it descriptions of eccentric strangers it sounds like on the second listen. It embodies homelessness and schizophrenia told by a homeless man. The musicianship on Ready for Confetti is professional and slick, which is basically status-quo for a big-league country album. Keen is a solid guitar picker in his own right and can drive a song on his own, but he’s got a longtime band of crack-players who utilize everything from Hammond B3 organs to congas to keep things from getting dusty. Rich Brotherton’s nylon stringed solo on “Black Baldi Stallion” is paralyzingly great and the knee-slapping percussion on “I Gotta Go” is notable. But instrumental experimentation and expertise has never been the heart of Robert Earl Keen’s music—songwriting is....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| Somewhere in the gulf between Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Rodney Crowell and Lyle Lovett and next wave Lone Stars Pat Green, Jack Ingram, Stoney LaRue, Randy Rogers and Hayes Carll, Robert Earl Keen put down roots—and was slightly less visible for the lack of a scene. But the journeyman troubadour, a Lone Star fixture for more than three decades, took his energy and applied it to his craft. Instead of bitching about not being famous, he crafted 16 albums that stand as a measure of what a split rail songwriter/artist can be. With Ready for Confetti—produced by steel player and Texas legend Lloyd Maines—the man who penned “The Road Goes On Forever” and the wry “Merry Christmas from the Family” delivers an album that can only be quantified as classic Keen. With influences ranging from the swing-driven “Top Down” to the reggae-undertowed “Waves on the Ocean,” Confetti demonstrates the diversity that is Texas music at its core. For Keen, whose voice is solid as a plank and instantly evokes a masculine sense of knowing, these are tales from a world he makes his own. Having seen much, measured more and considered the possibilities, he’s now a demi-institution in a world where songwriters are gauged by the mettle of their tales and the conviction with which they’re told. Embracing bitter invective, Keen leans unapologetically into “The Road Goes On and On,” then seamlessly turns to the sweet ache that’s country at its purest for the classic-feeling “Paint The Town Beige.” That ability to slip in and out of attitudes, truths, genres gives the 55-year-old Houston-raised, Kerrville-living songwriter both his intrigue and his staying power....full text |
| Slantmagazine |
| Robert Earl Keen is a creature of habit, retreating to his private cabin (somewhat pretentiously dubbed "The Scriptorium") every couple of years to crank out a new album's worth of sturdy Americana songs that draw the same set of comparisons to other acclaimed singer-songwriters like Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark. Keen's a fine songwriter (those comparisons to Van Zandt may be rote by now, but he's most certainly earned them), but perhaps too predictable as a recording artist. So Keen's claims that he intended to throw out his usual formula for his latest album, Ready for Confetti, are worth more than just passing attention. While the album is still yet another Americana collection, his decision to write while on the road and to focus more intensely on melody and pop structure makes Ready for Confetti far and away his most accessible and fun album to date. Unlike so many other Americana artists, Keen has never been one for ponderous, self-serious songwriting. He's a gifted lyricist, but he's also not above straight-up sarcasm and humor, and Ready for Confetti casts his snark in cheerful, sing-along melodies and to-the-point, economical narratives. "Black Baldy Stallion," with its call-and-response backing vocals, casually dresses down a man for his misguided sense of cowboy chivalry, with Keen delivering his lines with a careful balance of empathy and derision "Such a long, long way to ride/Just to hear her say your name." Producer Lloyd Maines takes a similar approach, giving the song a gentle, western swing backing that plays against the theme of its narrative, and he and Keen use that template to note-perfect effect over the course of the album. The rollicking acoustic blues of "I Gotta Go" makes for a song that's all forward momentum, propelled constantly by its driving percussion section toward the narrator's eventual execution. Standout "Waves on the Ocean" opens with the observation, "There's a day of reckoning coming/In my heart, I know you're gonna go," but Keen slowly unveils a series of natural-disaster metaphors for a failed relationship over an island-flavored shuffle that's so lackadaisical it sounds like it was lifted from a Zac Brown Band or Kenny Chesney single. The accessibility and studio polish of Maines's production are departures for Keen, but there's no arguing against how well they fit with the songwriter's ironic bent. Keen's writing on Ready for Confetti is, more often than not, incredibly sharp. "The Road Goes On and On" plays as an answer to his best-known song, "The Road Goes on Forever," as Keen spits out a series of insults that become more and more self-directed ("[You're] the original Liar's Paradox/And you'll have to Google that"); it's every bit as vicious and cutting as it is hilarious. He revisits another of his songs on a re-recorded version of "Paint the Town Beige" from his 1993 album, Bigger Piece of Sky, giving the song a far simpler, less fussy arrangement that allows his extraordinary eye for detail to shine....full text |
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